Should We Make Movies about Jesus?

Now, Contending for the Faith. In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call. Here’s this week’s question: “Dear Dave and Tom, What are your thoughts about motion pictures which contain images that represent Jesus? Are you aware that notable evangelical leaders are praising ultra-conservative Catholic Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ? But that’s not new. Campus Crusade’s Jesus film has also been highly regarded by Bible-believing Christians. I’ve also noticed that some of your newsletter covers and videos contain images representing the Lord on the cross and as a baby. Would you consider yourself guilty of idolatry?”

Tom:  Whoa, Dave! This one jumped on us. But let’s finish with us and start with…just generally.

Dave:  Finish with us? [Are] you going to sneak out of it that quickly, Tom?

Tom:  Well, we’ll have a few seconds left. No, seriously, I know—I want to address this whole thing. Because I don’t want to be guilty of idolatry, certainly, even sort of encouraging that or unwittingly promoting that.

But let’s go back to generally speaking. Exodus:20:1-3 [1] And God spake all these words, saying, [2] I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. [3] Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
See All...:  “And God spake all these words saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;…”

Dave:  Well, Tom, I think it’s clear He’s not saying you can’t draw a picture or you can’t take a photograph, although some people would take that. It begins, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make graven images in the likeness of anything, nor bow down to them.” So it’s talking about idolatry, very clearly. And I don’t think we’re bowing down to the front cover of The Berean Call, although we have to be very careful about this. But it started out mentioning movies. And that is, to me, the most serious part. I remember say, Ben Hur way back.

Tom:  Well a friend of yours was the art director on that.

Dave:  Right. Cecile B. DeMille wouldn’t even show you the face of Jesus. You got the back of his head, or the back of his hand. And Tom, this was a very controversial subject, and I don’t want to upset people, but that any actor would dare to portray God manifest in the flesh—pretend to be Jesus in a film—I think that’s very serious. And you know, you’ve been in the movie business for years, people tend to even worship actors and actresses. They become enamored with them. They hold them up. So people—this is Jesus to them now. When they think of Jesus, they think of this actor that they’ve seen. You can’t get it out of your head.

Tom:  Dave, I received a letter not too long ago from this individual who’s concerned about the Jesus film that we saw together. I seem to remember that he was—or had to do something with missionaries in India. And they’ve show that throughout India. And his big concern was showing this to the people who were already into idolatry. I mean—what do they have—three million and one gods?

Dave:  Three hundred million.

Tom:  Three hundred—and so they have all images of these idols, whether it be the monkey god or whatever it might be, and when they saw the film—I mean, this was his experience—these actors specifically (somebody would say well we don’t do that today. Well, we do it in a certain way, as you eluded to) but these people now see this image of Jesus, they think that is Jesus.

Dave:  It’s a tragedy, Tom, and of course, when you’re bringing the gospel to a Hindu, you have to deal with Hinduism. When you’re bringing the gospel to a Buddhist, you have to deal with Buddhism. As you said, three hundred and thirty million gods—well three hundred thirty million and one isn’t going to change much. And they accept Jesus as another avatar—another reincarnation of Vishnu. You’ve got to be very, very careful in presenting Christ to someone from a different culture. I think we’ve got a real problem there.

Now you know the illustration I often use. You say, “Dave, you got any pictures of Ruth [my wife]?”

And I open my wallet and I say, “Yeah, here, let me show you.”

It’s a picture of Marilyn Monroe. You say, “Wait a minute, that’s not your wife. That’s Marilyn Monroe!”

“Well yeah, but she’s a female. I mean, it’s got long hair and you know.”

“Well, but wait a minute, that’s not your wife.”

Okay, so you got a picture on the wall of Jesus. This becomes Jesus to you, to many people. And you know they’ve got their favorite Jesus. Some have a macho Jesus—short beard—or some with a long beard. Some an effeminate Jesus. Whatever this picture is—to whatever extend it affects your thinking about Jesus, and it is inaccurate—

Tom:  It’s a lie, Dave.

Dave:  It is. You’ve been led astray. And what is the point? Paul said, “Though we have known Christ after the flesh yet henceforth know we him no more.” He does not look like He did when He walked the dusty roads of Galilee. He’s in a resurrected, glorified body and John fell to His feet as dead when he saw him. It is described somewhat in Revelation 1.

Tom:  And this was the disciple that laid his head on Jesus’ breast.

Dave:  Right. Tom, I don’t want to be a fanatic, but I’m very, very concerned on this particular topic.

Tom:  Well, one other last thing about motion pictures. Dave, you’ve said many times the Bible is not a visual instrument. In other words, it doesn’t try to get us back there and describe everything and so on visually, that we can begin to visualize these things, and so on. Well, a motion picture—that’s what it does. It gives you images. Where the camera is, the lighting and all of that. This is all editorial. These are trying to communicate emotions and content and so on, but it’s not the Bible. So you’re going to get something that’s misleading, no matter how hard, no matter how sincere you are, it’s going to be misleading from the Word of God.

Dave:  The idea that we can improve upon God’s Word—the gospel is in words. The Bible is written in words. We can get a few actors and actresses out there to portray something and we’re going to improve on God’s Word? No! We are born again by the Word. We live by the Word. Jesus is called the Word. Let’s get back to the Word of God as He said it, and not try to improve it by acting it out.